VENICE – “Sometime after midnight, it disappeared,” said Bay Indies Mobile Home resident, John Cole.
A Christmas tree that was lit up and decorated to honor veterans at the Bay Indies mobile homes park disappeared over night Sunday.
“The tree was loaded with dog tags and they ought to have dropped some but they waited ‘til they picked up every dog tag… all of the sudden people walking around going, where’s the tree?,” said Cole.
This year, the Veterans Club of Bay Indies had the idea to hang over 200 dog tags on the tree, each personalized with a name of a veteran they wanted to honor this holiday season.
“This is one of the heaviest hit communities after hurricane Ian but they’ve all come out and they’ve all come together and they cleaned up this place really, really quick so this happening on top of everything just really felt personal to me,” said Venice Police Department Officer, Brett Woodworth.
So personal that Woodworth decided to chip in with his fellow officers and get a new Christmas tree for the community.
“This tree represents people that may not be able to celebrate Christmas or people that are no longer with us to be able to celebrate with their families so for people in this community this represents those family members,” said Woodworth.
Although no cameras were able capture the thief, and the original dog tags have not been returned, President of the Veterans Club of Bay Indies, Bill Capozzi says he is grateful for the selfless act of the Venice Police Department
“It was shocking, it was upsetting, they took the tree but they didn’t take our spirit, its back up and it’ll be decorated real soon,” said President of Veterans Club of Bay Indies, Bill Capozzi.
Anyone with information on the Christmas trees disappearance is asked to reach out to Venice Police Department at 941-486-2444.
